To return to the main
Nuclear Exports to Iran entry, see the Nuclear Exports to
Iran
file.
In January 1995, Russian
Minister of Atomic Energy Viktor Mikhailov
and the head of the Atomic Energy Agency of Iran, Reza Amrollahi, signed
a $800 million contract calling for Russia to complete the first unit of
the unfinished nuclear power station at Bushehr by installing a 1,000MW
VVER-1000 light-water reactor at the site within four and a half
years.[1] Construction of a nuclear power station at Bushehr
had been started in 1974 by the German firm Siemens as part of the Shah’s
nuclear program. However, work stopped after the Iranian revolution of
1979, and the site was heavily damaged by bombing during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq
war. Iran tried to find a contractor to finish the plant during the 1980s,
but failed owing to US pressure on potential suppliers. Amrollahi and Mikhailov
also signed a secret protocol to the contract under which Russia and Iran
would conduct talks on a wide range of nuclear assistance beyond the power
reactor. Under this protocol, Russia agreed to open negotiations on providing
Iranian specialists with training at Russian nuclear research centers,
assisting Iran’s efforts to mine uranium, and supplying Iran with a gas-centrifuge
uranium enrichment facility. The protocol also discussed the possibility
of Russia providing Iran with 2,000 metric tons (MT) of natural uranium
and a research reactor.[2] In August 1995, Russia and Iran signed
a 10-year contract under which Russia would supply nuclear fuel, fabricated
at the Novosibirsk Chemical Concentrate
Plant, for the Bushehr plant.[3] In
February 2002, Minatom announced that Bushehr NPP's
first reactor will become operational in September 2003.[10] Minatom
officials have indicated on a number of occasions that a contract for a second
reactor at Bushehr
may be issued after the first reactor becomes operational.[11] For more recent developments, see the Nuclear Exports to Iran Developments file.
Russian and Iranian officials insist the Bushehr plant is intended solely
for peaceful purposes. They point out that the plant and its facilities
will be under the safeguards of the International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA), as Iran is a signatory in good standing of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation
of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). They further argue that under Article IV
of the NPT, Iran is entitled to develop peaceful nuclear energy, including
not only nuclear power plants, but the entire nuclear fuel cycle, encompassing
mining and milling of uranium as well as enrichment of rector fuel, so
long as these activities are carried out under IAEA guidelines. They
also contend that the reactor being installed at Bushehr is a light water
reactor, which presents a relatively low proliferation risk as its spent
fuel cannot easily be converted into plutonium for nuclear weapons.
Critics, however, wonder why oil- and gas-rich Iran needs relatively expensive
nuclear energy, and note it makes even less economic sense for Iran to
develop its own uranium mines and enrichment facilities when it can import
reactor fuel more cheaply from Russia. They also point to the weaknesses
of the IAEA inspection system, which failed to detect the covert nuclear
weapons program in Iraq, which was well-developed and was discovered only
after Baghdad’s defeat in the 1991 Gulf War. Western specialists
are not convinced that even the strengthened inspection regime which the
IAEA is introducing under its “93+2” reform program would be sufficient
to guarantee that Iran does not develop nuclear weapons.
The Clinton administration and Western nonproliferation experts were
concerned about the proliferation implications of the proposed power reactor
itself, but many of the projects listed in the secret protocol raised additional
alarm, since they could contribute even more directly to the suspected
Iranian nuclear weapons program. The centrifuge plant was particularly
disturbing. Its ostensible purpose was to enrich natural uranium
to five percent U-235 in order to manufacture power reactor fuel, an activity
that is permitted under the NPT. But the same technology could be applied
to make 90 percent enriched uranium, the raw material for a nuclear weapon.
Under pressure from the United States, Russian President Yeltsin announced
at his May 1995 summit meeting with President Bill Clinton that he was
canceling the centrifuge aspect of the deal. Russian officials later denied
that this aspect of the deal ever existed.[4]
The possibility that Iran will use the Bushehr reactor directly in
its nuclear weapons program, although slight, cannot be ruled out under
the current NPT regime. The VVER-1000 reactor to be installed at
Bushehr will generate spent fuel each year containing more than 180kg of
plutonium.[5] Even reactor-grade plutonium can be used to build a
primitive nuclear device, if Iran were to divert and reprocess this fuel
in violation of its NPT obligations. In addition, if Iran were to
abruptly exit from the NPT at some point (as North Korea tried to do in
1993), and fuel burnup were reduced, the reactor could produce a significant
quantity of weapons-grade plutonium.[1]
Uncertainty regarding the disposition of the spent fuel is another
troubling aspect of the Bushehr reactor deal. The best option from the
nonproliferation point of view would be to have Russia take the spent fuel
back for permanent storage. (Russia is building reprocessing and long-term
storage facilities for spent fuel from VVER-100 reactors at the RT-2
Reprocessing Plant at Zheleznogorsk (Krasnoyarsk-26) in Siberia, but
as construction has been suspended due to insufficient funds and environmental
concerns, it is not certain when or if these facilities will be completed.[6])
Moreover, Russian environmental law appears to preclude the return of spent
fuel from foreign reactors.[7] Russian officials have insisted that the
radioactive waste resulting from the reprocessing of spent fuel should
be returned to the country operating the reactor, and have not been entirely
clear about whether Russia will accept the spent fuel for reprocessing
or not. Nor have they clarified what elements of the reprocessed
fuel they might ship back to Iran for storage, again raising significant
proliferation questions.[8] The issue of
spent fuel resurfaced in July 2002, following reports that in spite of Russian
assurances that spent fuel would be returned to Russia, no such provisions
existed. Although Russia and Iran apparently reached an agreement in
principle when the contract was signed, at the time there existed a number of
practical obstacles, including Russian legislation preventing the importation of
spent fuel into Russia. That law was changed in 2001, and as of July 2002 Russia
and Iran were engaged in negotiations to work out the details of the spent fuel takeback
plan.[12]
An even more serious concern is that Bushehr will provide indirect
assistance to different aspects of the suspected Iranian nuclear weapons
program. Moscow is committed to training Iranian physicists and technicians
for Bushehr at the Kurchatov
Institute and the Novovoronezh
Nuclear Power Plant.[9] Iranian
nuclear scientists also visited the
Scientific Research Design
Institute of Energy Technologies (NIKIET) in Moscow [13] and, according to
Minister of Atomic Energy Minister
Aleksandr Rumyantsev,
Russian specialists will assist Iranians in the operation of the first unit of Bushehr NPP
for the first six years of its operation.[14] Collaborating with Russian specialists will
greatly increase the knowledge of Iranian nuclear specialists and improve
their access to aspects of Russian nuclear technology. Collaborating
in the construction of the Bushehr reactor, for example, could yield Iran
useful know-how in the construction of a covert plutonium production
reactor, should Iran attempt to base its nuclear weapons program on plutonium. Cooperation with Russian specialists on uranium mining, milling, and enrichment
could assist Iran in efforts to build a covert uranium enrichment plant
(like that used by Pakistan in its nuclear weapons program). This
is one reason why the centrifuge enrichment plant provided for under the
original reactor deal was so disturbing. Russian centrifuge technology,
while advanced, is less technically demanding than that of Western
Europe, and it was feared that Iran could reverse-engineer Russian centrifuges,
greatly accelerating its efforts to enrich uranium to weapons grade, if
it chooses to take that route to build nuclear weapons. Even
though the Russian government cancelled that part of the Bushehr deal,
legal Russian-Iranian nuclear cooperation could provide a cover for illegal
transfers of nuclear technology from Iran to Russia, which cannot be ruled
out given the financial crisis in the Russian nuclear industry and the
relative weakness of Russian export controls.
In March 1996, Russia's ambassador to Tehran, Sergey Tretyakov, said
that Russia may help Iran build other nuclear power stations once Bushehr
is completed, saying that cooperation between Russia and Iran on the peaceful
use of atomic energy is not confined to the Bushehr project and that US
concerns over that cooperation were "the problem of the United States,
not of Russia."[1] In Tehran on 6 March 1998, Russian Deputy Prime Minister
Vladimir Bulgak concluded a preliminary deal for the construction of two
additional reactors at Bushehr. Minatom spokesman Georgiy Kaurov
stated that "a final deal on the construction of the next reactors in Iran
will come after we have sorted out our relations with Iran on the first
reactor." Apart from emphasizing that the additional reactor projects were
contingent on the sucessful completion of the first unit at Bushehr, Minatom
officials gave no additional details.[2,3]
In December 1998, press articles citing US intelligence
sources reported that Russia's Scientific
Research and Design Institute of Energy Technologies (NIKIET) and another
nuclear research institute (probably the Mendeleyev
University of Chemical Technology) were negotiating to sell a 40MW
heavy-water research reactor to Iran. According to these reports, negotiations
over the sale have been ongoing for over six months, and while no equipment
for this reactor has been shipped, personnel and blueprints have been exchanged.
The reports also raise concerns about the personal involvement of Minister
of Atomic Energy Adamov in the transaction, as Adamov served as director
of NIKIET until his appointment as Minister in 1998. This type of reactor
would significantly increase Iran's capability to produce plutonium for
a nuclear weapons program, as it is estimated that Iran is at least 10
years away from developing the required technology without Russian support.[5]
In the words of US nonproliferation expert Gary Milhollin, "If Iran succeeds
in importing a research reactor like this, it will open the way to making
a bomb."[6]
The January 1995 contract signed by Russian Minister of Atomic Energy
Viktor Mikhailov and Reza Amrollahi, head of the Atomic Energy Organization
of Iran (see entry under Bushehr Nuclear Power Station),
originally included an agreement to provide Iran with a 30- to 50-MWt light
water research reactor, but this aspect of the deal was subsequently cancelled.[1]
(Note
that this deal involved a light-water reactor, not the heavy-water reactor
reportedly under negotiation in December 1998.) On 6 April 1998,
Yevgeniy Adamov, recently appointed Minister for Atomic Energy, said that
Minatom would like to supply Iran with a research reactor, which would
run on fuel enriched to less than 20 percent in accordance with IAEA recommendations.
He related that a contract for the sale of the reactor had been drafted
in 1996, but awaits approval by both governments.[2,3] Adamov downplayed
US concerns about Iran's nuclear program by joking that he did not want
the recent signals of a potential thaw in relations between Washington
and Tehran "to end in 15 years at the political level with the US delivering
a research reactor with, say, 90 percent enrichment or exactly the same
fuel that is used in weapons."[4] Adamov acknowledged
in December 1998 that he was personally lobbying the Kremlin for permission
to export the light-water reactor.[5]
There are reports that in January 1995, Mikhailov and Amrollahi also
discussed a potential deal to construct an APWS-40 nuclear desalination
plant, to manufactured by the Experimental
Machine Building Design Bureau (OKBM), but the status of this project
is uncertain.[1]
Page last updated 6 November 2002
For more recent developments,
see the Nuclear Exports to Iran Developments file.
Comments or questions? Contact Michael Jasinski at MIIS CNS: Michael.Jasinski@miis.edu
This material is produced independently for NTI
by the Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the
Monterey Institute of International Studies and
does not necessarily reflect the opinions of and has
not been independently verified by NTI or its directors, officers,
employees, agents. Copyright © 2002 by MIIS.
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